A mega(pixel) upgrade

In the face of the iPhone X and Face ID we’d fully expect Samsung to improve its own biometric security on the upcoming Galaxy S9, and the latest rumor is that it might do this by upgrading the phone’s iris scanner.

According to a source speaking to The Korea Herald, Samsung will give the Galaxy S9 an improved 3MP camera lens for the iris scanner, up from 2MP on the Samsung Galaxy S8.

This will apparently make it better able to recognize the eyes of a user, even when there’s too little or too much light, or if they’re wearing glasses or move their eyes. As well as being more accurate, the iris scanner in the Samsung Galaxy S9 will supposedly work faster than the current version.

While this is just a rumor for now it’s a very believable change, and a needed one, given that in our Galaxy S8 review we noted that its iris scanner often failed.

The source also said that apparently lower-end Samsung handsets could start getting iris scanners either late in 2018 or early in 2019.

Two SIMs are better than one

And that’s not all today’s Galaxy S9 news, as it also looks like the phone might have a dual-SIM slot – at least in some regions.

Mobiel Kopen has reportedly found model numbers likely attached to the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus at the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and they’re listed as having dual-SIM slots.

A dual-SIM means you can put two SIM cards in your phone, which could be handy if you want one for work and one for personal use for example, or if you regularly travel between two different countries, so you can have a local SIM card for each.

However, the second slot often doubles as a microSD card slot, so it’s likely that to use it on the S9 you’d have to sacrifice expandable storage.

And that’s if you get a second slot at all. Even if this information is correct it reportedly refers to Chinese and Taiwanese models, so it’s very possible that much of the world will just get a single-SIM version.

In fact, we’ve previously been told by sources at mobile networks that they make too much money on international use to be happy about dual-SIM slots on major phones, so we’d be surprised is the Galaxy S9 does have one in the US or UK.